Essays

One evening when the sun was about to set, my mother asked me to go and buy some onions and salt from a nearby sundry shop. The shop is run by Ramlal, a jovial middle-age man with a huge pot-belly. His wife and two young children, a boy a girl, help in running the shop.

It was almost completely dark when I reached the shop. Ramlal had switched on the lights in his small but adequately stocked shop. He was alone at the time and I was the only customer. Ramlal greeted me with a huge smile. I always wanted to ask him how he kept his teeth so sparkling white but I was afraid to ask Anyway I told him what I wanted to buy and he went about getting the things for me.

Next door to Ramlal's shop is a coffee shop run by an another man. It was still open at that time. From the coffee shop emerged two men. They came into Ramlal's shop and I could smell the overpowering smell of beer coming from these two men. Both of them were young but from the way they half-walked, half staggered into the them. It is never a good idea to be near drunkards. One never knows what they will do next.

True enough, my caution was justified, for the next moment without any warning, one of the men swept a pile of tinned goods from a table onto the floor. In a second, the neat rows were reduced to utter chaos. Trip man who did it roared out in laughter. I could see Ramlal's anger rising. He raised his voice. As if in reply to his retort, the two men started shouting obscenities at him. Then, suddenly a knife appeared in hand of one of them. The man who held the knite was small and weighty and judging from the muscles in his hand, I had no doubt he was very strong.

I was so overwhelmed by the suddenness of the events that I could not move my hands, nor the other parts of my body. I was held in a vice-like grip by the other man. I did not even see him coming. I struggled but all I could do was to make the grip tighten more. It became difficult to breathe.

I heard a lot of shouting and I could see the knife-man slapping Ramlal. Reluctantly, Ramlal opened the drawer where he kept his cash and the knife-man leaned over and made a grab for the cash. That was the mistake he made. For a fleeting moment his knife was forgotten and in that short moment Ramlal seized his chance, Ramlal's huge right hand came down hard over the back of the leaning man's head. The form of the blow carried the man's head right down hard onto the table. There was d sickenmq thud when his face met the table. The knife-man's head rebounded like a rubber ball from the table and I could see blood all over his face. He was badly hurt. The knife dropped from lifeless hands onto the floor.

Moving with surprising speed, Ramlal grabbed a bottle of tomato ketchup from a shelf and broke it over the man's head- Red tomato ketchup splattered all over the place. I could not distinguish how much of the red stuff on the man's face was his own blood, or tomato ketchup. Slowly, he sank to the floor and lay still.

I struggled to get loose. It felt so easy. Then, I realized that hands no longer held me. I turned around and saw the dark figure of a man running out of the shop and disappearing into the semi-darkness. I was about to go in pursuit but Ramlal stopped me. He said it was useless pursuing somebody in the dark. Moreover, the man could be armed and have dangerous weapons.

Ten minutes later, the shop was filled with curious people, all wanting to know what had happened. The knife man was herded into a police car which had arrived by now. Ramlal and I had to give our statements to the police.

When I arrived home half an hour later, my mother was waiting impatiently for me. She was about to lecture me about being so slow in getting a few things but she stopped and listened dumbfounded while I narrated the events to her. When I finished, she smiled and said that she was glad I was not injured.